


Like A House Of Cards

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-06 22:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto doesn't grieve like Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A House Of Cards

Jack wasn’t grieving. Well, he was postponing grieving, Ianto knew. He was shoving everything down and away and hiding it so he wouldn’t have to take it out and look at it for another couple of weeks or months or years. He was half-grieving, spending most of his time not spent chasing aliens, in his office. Periodically he’d go up to the gantry and stare down at the practically deserted Hub, before trudging back to his office to continue work. But when he talked, he was as boisterous and big as usual.

Things weren’t the same, though. Work was harder with only three people. Ianto had taken on Owen and Tosh’s jobs as well as his own. Gwen was trying to learn Tosh’s job, but she could barely sit at the tech’s old desk without bursting into tears. Ianto was having to console her every hour or so.

Of course, he wasn’t doing much better himself. He was moving slower, talking less. Often, his eyes would prickle with tears he’d blink back. He couldn’t go up to the greenhouse (it was Owen’s pet project) or get meat feast pizza or smell lavender perfume without spiralling into something similar to depression. Sometimes he made five cups of coffee and then stood there on the walkway, staring down at his tray, stunned at the extra two mugs. Sometimes he’d go down to clean the autopsy bay and be surprised to find it just as immaculate as it was last time he went down there. Sometimes he thought he could hear Tosh’s keyboard clicking away, or Owen’s quiet grumbling. He’d look in the direction of the sound and see—nothing. When that happened, he’d quietly take himself down to the archives and lean against the cold wall, breathing slowly, raggedly.

They’d taken to doing two-night shifts: each member stayed two nights before letting the next take over. So on nights when Ianto was monitoring the Hub, he’d sit at Tosh’s computer or on the stairs to the autopsy bay and let the tears roll down his face in silence. Not that it released any amount of the grief or misery inside him. Sometimes he’d go down to the morgue and sit on the floor between Tosh and Owen’s drawers and talk to them. He guessed that Jack knew about this, as the captain was smart enough to go back through the CCTV, but he didn’t care. He could barely cope with one death, how was he supposed to cope with the deaths of two of his colleagues? He wasn’t even going to try to push it down. He lacked the energy, the will, the optimism, to push it all down and try to keep going. He moved around the Hub as if under water, muted, sluggish. He floated his way through the days, feeling transparent and fuzzy, like a ghost.

Gwen was exhausted from grief when she went home every night, and Ianto was glad Rhys was such a kind and loving husband, and so good to her. She was hard to handle at work; he wondered what she must be like at home when she was allowed to lose control and lose focus.

It was a night for Ianto to stay at the Hub. He was sitting on the sofa, staring off in the general direction of the med bay, lost in thought. Jack, who’d decided to stay inside for once (it was snowing and cold), sauntered up to him and grinned.

“Wanna play a game? A card game?"

Ianto glanced up at him, said nothing, focused his eyes back to middle distance. He was too tired for this.

“Come on, Ianto. Lighten up, will you.”

Ianto felt a flash of anger and was off the couch in an instant.

“Lighten up? Lighten up, Jack? Two of my colleagues are dead, Jack Harkness. And I know you lose people all the time, I know you’ve learnt to push it all down so you can deal with it when it doesn’t hurt so much, but you know what? I’m not immortal. I don’t have that experience. So sod off. Tosh was my best friend. She saved my life and I will love her forever for that. She supported me after Lisa. She understood me. We could talk about anything at all. We had dinner together every weekend. She used to come over and watch Bond movies with me and we’d talk about everything. She was my best friend and now she’s gone. And Owen was my brother and I loved him. I know it seemed like we didn’t get along, but Jack, I trusted him with my life. He was the one I trusted most to have my back, to keep me safe, and not just because he is—was—a doctor. He kept me safe because those four months you were gone, we spent every available night at the pub together, talking, drinking whatever. We’d go to whoever’s flat was closest and sleep it off. He and I were constantly together and we got to know each other and I trusted him. He was my brother and my friend and he’s gone too. So just leave me alone because when my friends die I want to grieve properly, I don’t want to move on quite yet.”

Surprise flickered across Jack’s face, followed by regret and grief.

Just as quick as it had come, the anger within Ianto died and he was left again with the cold emptiness of loss that he’d been plagued with since the death of his friends. He turned his back on Jack and went down to the morgue to sit between Owen and Tosh’s drawers. He put his head on his knees. He knew Jack was watching, but he didn’t care. His friends were gone, Jack was inaccessible, and there was too much weight on his shoulders because he was Torchwood’s caretaker. And he could only care about so much before it broke him.


End file.
